Watching the film with my Pop, listening to him laugh-out-loud at the lines being delivered by the hyper masculine, alpha-male actor playing Bond in this film has never left me.

“Shocking. Positively Shocking.”

This wasn’t Roger Moore. This man was Sean Connery.
This man is James Bond.

And this man is the only 007 there will ever be in my mind.

Slowly I began to watch the films, out of sequence…

“Dr.No”

“Thunderball”

“You Only Live Twice”

“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (Connery made a massive mistake leaving the franchise for this film, it is perhaps the strongest of them all…and it was the Bond film played by George Lanzby, who was promptly shown the door after the film wrapped and Connery came back for the awful “Diamonds Are Forever”

Like any film franchise or television series; it hadn’t succumbed to the fact that it was a pop culture phenomenon yet, because it wasn’t at the time.

Story driven, well paced and perfectly acted, it’s Bond and Connery’s second outing as 007 British secret agent, and while Ian Fleming’s book was a best seller, the films producer, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, was just getting his feet wet.

Did his family know that in 2015, a 24th Bond film would be unleashed?

No God Damn way.

Now people love “Goldfinger”, and for good reason, but it’s at that point when, as my Pop says:

“It started to get a bit over the top.”

When I was coming up, Moore was on his way out and they were trying to replace him.

Moore did “Octopussy”, then “A View To A Kill” and he was out.

Timothy Dalton stepped in for two films, a good Bond, but he wasn’t staying.

The search for another Bond began again.

At that point, the only logical actor being considered in my mind was a then unknown Clive Owen.

Brought to my attention in the late 90s early 2000’s, Owen starred in a BMW films production, a series called “The Hire” about an anonymous driver, hired to take various passengers from point A to B in a mint BMW…getting into all sorts of trouble along the way leading to these tightly choreographed car chases, set up to demonstrate the prowess and abilities of the cars he drives in each of the mini-films.

The episodes of this series, which ran 5-10 mins a piece, were directed by the likes of Tony Scott, Guy Ritchie, Ang Lee, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai & John Frankenheimer…so BMW wasn’t fucking around here.

But the producers went the polished route and gave it to Pierce Brosnan.

I tuned out at that point.

Wasn’t excited for these films anymore. Bloated nonsense.

Cut to when they announced they were going to relaunched the series.

I was sort-of down.

Ideally, I hoped, we would see James as a child, teenager, the back story to the man who becomes the 007.

Bond in boarding school?

But we didn’t get that.

Instead, the reboot of the franchise starts the moment Bond gets his license to kill and becomes a “Double 0” agent.

This was a mistake in my eyes, missed opportunity. But as it turns out when the reboot started taking shape it wasn’t necessarily to restart the Bond franchise, it was to simplify the franchises over-the-top elements.

Then I saw the film.

The first scene alone was like nothing I had ever seen in a Bond film. A “BRUTAL” fight in a mens room.

This a solid film in my opinion, but didn’t dare, didn’t risk as much, as it could have.

Now that being said, the energy that the new 007, Daniel Craig, infused in Bond was a suave, cool, violent, hard-core lady killer man with dirt under his fingernails. Those qualities propelled him to my second favorite 007 by the time “Royale” finished.

On to:

“Quantum Of Solace”

A little background, the writer strike was going on during the pre-production and production of this film.

Daniel Craig and director Mark Foster had to come up with a story on the fly as they were shooting because no Writers Guild of America writers were allowed to work on it.

To polish it.

Nothing.

So what we get is…

In my opinion…

A pretty kick-fucking-ass raw revenge flick, about Bond, furious over the loss of his love, going rogue and on a killing spree.

And I’m not talking normal 007 killing.

I mean cold-blooded, pushing dudes off rooftops killing man.

People didn’t love it.

I did.

But moving forward, MGM had financial issues and the next film was up in the air.

Would it happened?

Who would direct?

Would Craig return?

MGM had no money, everything seemed like death.

Then things started to turn around for them and they set their sights on the 23rd Bond film.

They would risk it all.

Talks start with new directors and a bunch of names are brought up.

But not normal Bond directors.

A-List directors.

Then Christopher Nolan and Sam Mendes name came up.

You ask me, the Broccoli family wanted Mendes badly and brought up Nolan to push him into agreeing.

Well whatever the hell happened behind closed doors, they landed Mendes, Academy Award Winning director of “American Beauty”, and the under-rated and beautiful “Road To Perdition”.

Bond needed somebody behind the camera that would breathe new life into it from the ground up.

Bond didn’t need a new face.

Bond needed a new heart.

Mendes was that heart.

“Skyfall”

All I needed was to hear his name attached to the next Bond film and I knew we would see a polished, beautiful, meticulously constructed film.

But once I saw it, I had no idea such a wonderful Bond film could be made.

Mendes made a Bond film for Bond fans.

An Academy Award winning director, coupled with his go-to cinematographer Roger Deakins who photographer the outstanding “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, “Jarhead” & “The Shawshank Redemption”…

Well for “Spectre” Sam Mendes is back, apparently very interested in doing a few more thank the gods, because in this film addicts opinion, “Skyfall” was the best 007 film since “Russia”

And thats a massive compliment.

He has changed up cinematographers this time.

We now have Hoyte van Hoytema.

He photographed the original Swedish version of “Let The Right One In”, Spike Jonez’s “Her”

…and most recently a little film by Christopher Nolan called “Interstellar”

If you’ve seen that film and you look at the teaser above, you’ll recognize his style immediately.

Joining the cast are Christopher Waltz, this guys fucking everywhere.(That’s not a bad thing.)

And, in true testament to her all encompassing absolute fucking beauty…

One of the Bond women in this film is Monica Bellucci…

50 years old.

50 years old and she’s a fucking Bond girl.

That’s how hard-core beautiful this woman is and my God I love her.

Moving on…

We’re getting to the heart of James Bond folklore now with the introduction of “Spectre”.

I’m seeing a possible trilogy of Mendes films that will forever set the bar for all new bond films moving forward.

Going deep inside the mother criminal empire behind everything evil in the world of James Bond.

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Wes

Voices Film & TV: What is it?
Voices is, at its core, a blog and podcast devoted to celebrating the art of visual storytelling and expression in film, television and music.
We celebrate pop culture, news, people that live with passion and realize their dreams, cultural icons...
Inspirational people who live hard, and their wonderful achievements.
We have a solid team here, each filled with a passion to express their love of the arts and to celebrate those who move us.
Voices is the mountain top we climb to voice our opinions and praise from.
Voices started 4 years ago.
To "Voice” or state an opinion, to express a point of view...
My love for visual storytelling and artistic expression.
Articles have become podcasts.
I’m Wes Candela, and along with Brother Oldboy, we started this thing of ours.
“Speaking as a child of the eighties…”
The articles:
You will always read & hear passionate commentary, find film and television trailers and video clips, along with hi-resolutio! key-art and images.
The podcasts:
With podcasts, I mix the dialogue with audio clips from the topic at hand to bring the listener sonically into the conversation.
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– Wes Candela, 2017
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Celebrating Film, Television…Visual Storytelling. Leave Your Mark

The transformative alternative movement of the 1990’s wasn’t only auditory...it was visual. Part of that landscape was Oliver Stone’s groundbreaking controversial visionary odyssey and assault on the senses ...1994’s Natural Born Killers. "...The only thing that can kill the demon...Love."